Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Secretary Clinton-- Tear Down That Wall... Before The Donald Does!

Tear down that wall of secrecy you are hiding those transcripts behind. The American people have a right to know what Goldman Sachs and other plutocrats felt was worth $225,000 a pop to hear. Was it assurances that no matter what you said on the campaign trail, once you got into office it would be business as usual? Thanks to the new petition sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America, the people of the United States have an opportunity to demand the release of those transcripts.Folks, this is the U.S. of A. and we the people want to know if what our candidates say in public in any way comports with what they say in private. Remember the 47%? They defeated Romney and those same 47% will defeat Hillary if they find out what she says about them behind closed doors is not what she has been telling them (us) in public. Democrats need to know NOW because you can bet Donald Trump already knows and once she is nominated it will be too late. The Donald will have those transcripts splashed all over twitter, Instagram and the New York Times before the Democrats pack up and leave Philly!Want to know exactly what she said? Sign the petition.

When Hillary Clinton spoke to Goldman Sachs executives and technology titans at a summit in Arizona in October of 2013, she spoke glowingly of the work the bank (Goldman Sachs) was doing raising capital and helping create jobs, according to people who saw her remarks. One went on to say “It was pretty glowing about us. It’s so far from what she sounds like as a candidate now. It was like a rah-rah speech. She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director." The person who saw Clinton’s Arizona remarks to Goldman said he thought there was no chance the campaign would ever release them. "It would bury her against Sanders," this person said.Want to know exactly what she said? Sign the petition.Because "at another speech to Goldman and its big asset management clients in New York in 2013, Clinton spoke about how it wasn’t just the banks that caused the financial crisis (Really?) And that it was worth looking at the landmark 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law to see what was working and what wasn’t." (Oh yeah?)But Goldman Sachs wasn’t her only admirer. "She gave one speech sitting on a stage under the life-size model of the blue whale that hangs in the American Museum of Natural History." Get the joke? Remember the London whale? Well, the joke will be on us if we don’t get those transcripts! "For a fee of $275,000, she had agreed to appear before the clients of Golden Tree Asset Management, the capstone of a lucrative speechmaking sprint through Wall Street that earned her more than $2 million in less than seven months." Most people don’t earn that much in a lifetime!Want to know exactly what she said? Sign the petition.But fees like $225,000 per speech were no big deal according to Clinton. "That’s what they offered," she said. "You know, every secretary of state that I know has done that." But she wasn’t exactly telling the truth-- "$225,000 was her minimum speaking fee according to her 2014 tax return!" But, putting that lie aside, and on to the next one, she told Anderson Cooper, she wasn’t even sure she was going to run: "Well, I didn’t know… to be honest I wasn’t-- I wasn’t committed to running. I didn’t know whether I would or not." (Are you kidding me?) So she guessed she might as well take the cash and worry about it later. We bet Goldman thought they were paying a POTUS-to-be and not just another government retiree!

Want to know exactly what she said? Sign the petition... and, if you'd like, consider contributing to Bernie's campaign and to a couple of the campaigns of the progressive congressional candidates, like Alan Grayson, Pramila Jayapal, Lou Vince, Raul Grijalva and Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who have endorsed him and who are running on his issues.

3 Comments:

I like Bernie and will probably vote for him both times I get the chance. I decided a year ago that I didn't want Hillary in the WH just because of all the scandal baggage that she'd bring with her from the 90s, and since.

But this obsession people have with her Wall St speeches is to me bizarre and unproductive.

Yeah, she was paid a lot of money for private speeches, and I bet she probably had nice things to say about the people who just paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars. Imagine that. And yeah she was paid more for those speeches than most people earn in a lifetime, but come on... if someone offered you $250,000 to say nice things about them at a conference would you A) decline to say nice things and/or B) aske them for less money?

The President has less to do with financial reform than Congress and the Senate, so we need to focus on getting reformers in THERE and stop fretting over whether this one person is friends with wealthy bankers and what is most likely a non-issue going forward. Speaking of her ties to the wealthy, her friendship with Drumpf is more concerning to me.

Yeah, she was paid a lot of money for private speeches, and I bet she probably had nice things to say about the people who just paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars. Imagine that. And yeah she was paid more for those speeches than most people earn in a lifetime, but come on... if someone offered you $250,000 to say nice things about them at a conference would you A) decline to say nice things and/or B) aske them for less money?

It's cute how you completely elided the real issue here.

Clinton got tons of dollars from Wall Street fat cats because they correctly presume that she will give them a return on their investment if she reaches the Whitehouse. That's why "she was paid more for those speeches than most people earn in a lifetime". Chances are that Goldman Sachs isn't going to offer you and I the same opportunity, because we aren't going to be in a position to screw over the American people in order to make Wall Street happy.

The President has less to do with financial reform than Congress and the Senate, so we need to focus on getting reformers in THERE and stop fretting over whether this one person is friends with wealthy bankers...

No, the executive is in charge of the DOJ, the FBI and the Fed. If the Obama administration hadn't been so full of Rubinite looters, maybe some bankers would have gone to jail after 2007. Obama's DOJ went so easy on the financial industry that another crash is a certainty, since no one who caused the previous crash ever saw any consequences. Who the president is matters.